Musk is so concerned about artificial intelligence, or AI, that he is calling for some sort of regulatory oversight.

We learned earlier that Musk believes robots may start to see humans as an annoying, trouble-causing nuisance, which to be fair we probably are, and choose to delete us.

Musk, who intends to move to Mars anyway, reckons that there will be no escape from this Asimovian nightmare.

He returned to the subject at the AeroAstro Centennial Symposium and to a team of students from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, explaining that humans are close to taking the lid off something that could cause problems.

"I think we should be very careful about artificial intelligence. If I had to guess at our biggest existential threat, it's probably that. So we need to be very careful," he said, according to a report on The Guardian.

"I'm increasingly inclined to think that there should be some regulatory oversight, maybe at the national and international level, just to make sure that we don't do something very foolish."

Robotics and AI, as anyone who recalls Metal Mickey will tell you, can cause problems, and Musk used some fantastical imagery to get his point across, warning that industry may be raising a demon and that planning missions to Mars would be a better way to spend time.